 Bismillah ar-Rahman ar-Rahim. As-salamu alaikum ar-Rahmatullahi ar-barakatuh. Welcome to today's program in which we are continuing our series in which we are exploring the various ways we can help integrate different groups of people into the Muslim community to help make sure that everyone has an equal opportunity to help strengthen the Muslim community and contribute to the Muslim community as well as we all have the chance to grow individually with respect to our religion and our spirituality. Today we are going to be exploring a very big issue, an issue that gets a lot of attention and a lot of discussion but at the same time it's an issue which is sometimes controversial. People feel very emotional about it. It can lead to great debates and yet it is an issue that does need to be discussed and that is the question of inclusion of women at the mosque or at the Islamic center and in particular I'm talking about countries where Muslims are a minority because I know the dynamics of this sometimes work out a bit differently in majority Muslim countries. Albeit many people nowadays are bringing up the same issues but in particular in a place where the mosque or the Hussainiyah or Islamic center is really the only place where one might have an Islamic environment it's generally agreed that it is crucial for both men and women to be able to participate and to benefit from it. And yet we do know that in many areas in the West in particular I wouldn't say everywhere but in many areas women's inclusion at the mosque is a genuine problem to the degree that sometimes women do get disillusioned and they stop going or even stop paying attention to religion at all because they haven't had a positive experience which of course is not good. And we do know that this issue got a lot of attention lately because of the new women's mosque in California which of course is fine. I mean there have been women's mosques in California for quite a long time. But I think the issue is not so much that it was formed but rather what issues led to its formation. What issues led some women to break off from Islamic centers for males and females and say sorry this isn't working for us. And most importantly how can we change those issues. How can we make the mosque more inclusive for both males and females. Inshallah I do hope that some of these ideas will be on board. I am not the only one saying them so there are many people saying these things worldwide both in the Shi'i and Sunni communities. And I hope inshallah in this decade we'll be able to actually resolve more of these issues so that we'll not continue having the same discussions because some of these issues are really quite long standing. So what are some of the issues. One of the effects of having typically having gender segregated warship is men genuinely may not know what experiences women have. Women also may not know what experiences men have because we only see our own experience. Hearing about it second hand is not seeing it. So I don't think there's some sort of plot to try to make women feel marginalized in Islamic centers. However I think there's simply because it isn't experienced in particular by men they don't understand some of the things that women have to deal with. One of the basic ways that one can begin to understand these things is simply to literally have a look at the situation other people are in. One of the issues that many women face is the issue of space for prayer or listening for lectures and participation at the mosque. And now basically we've got three models of Islamic centers, mosques, prayer halls and so forth. You have the one where men and women are in the same room so there may be a partition or no partition but you have everyone in the same space. And in that setup especially if there's no partition like was done at the prophetic mosque some of these issues don't come up like seeing the speaker that's not generally an issue or hearing the speaker. Then we have the setup where you have men and women in separate rooms and the speaker generally on the men's side. This sometimes leads to some issues that need addressing. One of the most basic issues that comes up is the size and quality of the space. I remember once I had a look at the man's side of the mosque. This is not during worship hours I didn't go in there with all the brothers praying but I had a reason to go over there. And so I went from the women's side which I was used to and I looked at the man's side and I was completely astonished. It was so beautiful. It was clean. It was big. There were chandeliers and calligraphy and you know decorations. It was a very nice space. It looked like a very nice reception room in someone's home. And then I went back to the women's space. It was small. It was a bit darker. We didn't have decorations on the walls. We didn't have these nice chandeliers. And this sent me a message. It said well wait a minute these spaces are not equal. And the good stuff is going for the other side. And our space was also smaller. This is despite the fact that many women do have their children with them so you've got women you've got children and you've got people in a smaller space. Now as I was saying before I don't think there's a great plot to do this. I don't even think most people are aware of it. I'm sure most men at the mosque mentally assume that women's space is similar to theirs. It might not occur to them that the women might have a significantly smaller space which is not enough for everyone. Especially if you have toddlers running around. It may be physically uncomfortable. It may be for example hotter. You may not be able to hear properly and so forth. They may not necessarily know that the amount of care that's taken for decorating the man's side which is usually the public side is not always there on the women's side. But these sorts of issues do send a conscious message in places where there are issues that women are not included. These things can be fixed. Alhamdulillah we have money in our community and we have very talented people and artistic people, architectural people who can fix these situations. And so one thing you can actually do is for example if you're a man in the community is during the off hours again so I'm not going to invade the women's side when they're there but during the off hours get permission and go see what the women's space looks like. It may be very nice. Some communities do a good job I won't name names but some communities do a good job in making nice prayer space for sisters and brothers and some communities need some improvement. See how the situation is and if it does seem to suggest that there's inequity between the facilities for males then consider proposing some changes or working for some changes in the community so that everyone feels equally included. There is something else that doesn't always get brought up enough but I think it's important for us to start thinking about these things and that is sometimes there is the issue of physical accessibility and that is a very common setup for these buildings is to have the brothers on the first floor and then the sisters on the second floor for various reasons. However this may not work for elderly women who have difficulty climbing stairs it may not work for women in wheelchairs or who have problems walking women who are very close to delivering children may have issues with this sort of setup as well so just as it's good to make sure that the actual space available to men and women is equitable also it's important to make sure the accessibility is there too and that people with disabilities are not being left out simply because their space is not accessible to them. Another very basic issue that comes up with respect to women being included at the mosque and this is in particular in cases where you have men and women in separate rooms sometimes we can't hear and the reason why we can't hear is that we have so many good technological things nowadays they sometimes put up TV screens and speakers and so forth but sometimes they don't work and if you go to all the effort to go to a men's list for example there's a big crowd and then the speaker stops working on the women's side there's really nothing to do for the next two or three hours about sit and chat amongst yourselves so these things also need to be taken care of if there is a group of people who physically cannot hear the speaker you need to make sure that you do have very quality facilities available so that everyone has equal access to hearing what is going on and nowadays it's quite common to use TV screens as well so to make sure that is working it's not pointing at the ceiling or something and the sound level is appropriate these are really some basic things but nonetheless they do make a very big difference in people's experiences and feeling feeling welcome, feeling like they are part of the community there's one other issue that in general is a women's issue not always a women's issue but in general a women's issue and that is very frequently when a family goes to the Islamic center the children are often times with the woman that means that you might have all the women together in one room and if say half of the women have four-year-olds, five-year-olds six-months-year-olds and so forth you're going to have these kids naturally making a fair amount of noise because they're kids and the two-year-old doesn't know that they're not supposed to throw a tantrum in the middle of the medullist and so forth what can you do you don't want to tell the people not to come right because they deserve the opportunity to come and participate in the religious community especially someone who's at home all day with children it's good for the children to be there too it's good for them to be in that kind of environment even if they're not old enough necessarily to understand everything that's going on I still think it's very important to bring them and these are areas and again this is fairly basic but it is lacking in many places that's why I'm mentioning it where it is important to give facilities and I do have to say that again some communities excel so let's look at some of these models now again I'm not going to name names but there is one mosque in London I'm thinking of that I think truly excels at providing facilities to take care of the fact that there's going to be children and if you just put the children on the women's side a lot of times no one is going to be able to hear because the children are noisy so this place it has a room for adult men it has a room for adult women it has a room for women which has a good sound system so you can hear everything if you want to who have infants and otherwise noisy little beings and it also has dedicated classes for children too so that rather than just sort of zoning out or playing mobile phone games during the lectures and Majalis the kids are actually taught a structured curriculum by teachers who are qualified by that I don't necessarily mean they have to have a teaching degree but it's not just taking someone and saying you're going to be our volunteer today to do kids classes but rather there is a plan there is a structure so therefore the kids are excited about going and they are productively and actively engaged in their religious education while the parents get a bit of a break and can listen to the program or the Majalis and so forth and also there are facilities for women who have children this solves the problem it solves many problems actually that way for example the person without children is not going to suffer from the noise situation but it accommodates people who have kids too again may emphasize these things are really very basic and straightforward but there are areas where in some places we do need to grow in order to help be a bit more inclusive in the community and serve the needs of the different people these sorts of things I do believe they'll really make a difference in people's lives in particular the lives of children and young people and also women but inshallah the whole community as well so thank you for joining us today inshallah we'll be looking at some more angles of these issues in the future programs assalamu alaikum warahmatullahi wa barakatuh